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What comes first: Stability or Development

There is a frequent debate within the humanitarian field: must one first impose stability upon a location to advance socio-economic development, or must one somehow impose both concepts simultaneously. The answer to this question does not exist within the broad realm of theory, but does exist within application. One must establish a degree of stability wherein participating humanitarian and development actors may affectively do their job. If they are required to function in para-military fashion, the integrity of their actions is compromised and the agency loses the mobility of independence. However, if they are at risk of kidnapping, death, torture, or other needless forms of conflict and suffering, their actions are once again compromised.

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For decades our television screens have been dominated by images of ragged people, hopelessly isolated within political limbo as destitute refugees. Movies describe refugee camps as exotic edge-of-the-earth locales full of victimized dark-skinned people. Magazines and websites occasionally release an article on a brand new shelter technology, solar stove, or water pump that is expected to change the future of these settlements.
Although often inaccurate, there is some real world legitimacy to these images. A decent example of the typical chaos can be found at this moment in Nigeria. But this is not always, even often, the case. While camp conditions are often poor, there have been strides toward the improvement of camp planning, most notably in Turkey. Many seek funding to further improve existing camps, such as found in this request for assistance to displaced South Sudanese living in Ethiopia. But overall, regardless of funding or geography, the progress of change has been sl…

Just prior to my last stint of working in Somalia, I purchased a small consumer drone to use as social research tool. Unfortunately the landscape had changed drastically since my last time in Mogadishu, and it was impossible to use, in particular because I am terrible at flying the damn thing. But I have since invested many hours into piloting the UAV to explore its utility as a research tool for urban planning and design.

Last weekend, a small disaster took place when I lost the signal to the UAV. The drone drifted out of sight and crash landed. I had no idea where. It took several hours to find (on a building rooftop, I couldn't see it, but I found its WIFI signal), and even longer to recover (24 hours). At some point on Twitter, Constantine Samaras, raised a significant point: Perhaps this situation could have been avoided if I was in a no drone zone. But what does would that look like?
— Costa Samaras (@CostaSamaras) August 9, 2014

I was deeply honored to give the commencement speech to the graduating class of 2017 at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. These last few days, I am now continually reflecting upon the unique and powerful proposition this school makes to the world. There is no other school like it. The only other college to which I can compare it is the mythical Black Mountain College of the 1960s that produced revolutionary minds such as John Cage. To plagiarize someone else’s story, the Art Academy (AAC) doesn’t merely graduate artists or designers, it graduates the critical but hard to find team member of every successful business: "there are three kinds of people you want to launch a business: the person with the idea, the person with the financial sense, and the person who makes you say 'what the fuck?' The last is the person who can rip ideas apart, remix them, and flip everything upside down to generate breakthroughs that no one else can see." The last kind of person is particul…